Thursday, August 22, 2013

Like so many other enthusiastic readers of crime fiction, I was saddened to learn earlier this week that Elmore Leonard--the author known as the “Dickens of Detroit” (even though he’d long moved away to a suburb of Michigan’s largest city)--had died at age 87, after suffering a stroke last month. His novels had for so many years, and so consistently, fed my reading addiction (over the course of the last six decades, beginning before I was born, he’d produced almost a book a year!), that it was near-unthinkable to conceive of his prose spigot being turned off by such a bit player as mortality.

Despite the fact that I resided in Detroit for a while during
the mid-1980s, and attended an abundance of literary events there, I never had
the opportunity to meet Leonard. However, not long before I moved to the Motor
City, I did correspond with him. At the time, I was employed in my first reporting
job out of college, with Portland, Oregon’s “alternative newspaper,” Willamette Week, and as part of my efforts to assemble a special crime fiction-themed edition of that paper’s entertainment section, I sent letters out to a variety of mystery and thriller novelists whose names were familiar to me, even if--as was then the case with Leonard--I had not yet read much of their work. I asked each of the authors for suggestions of recent books in the genre that they’d recommend to others.

Leonard was generous enough to reply in a letter dated April 28, 1981. He specifically recommended Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park and George V. Higgins’ Rat on Fire, and added that “My favorite suspense writers are Ira Levin [A Kiss Before Dying] and William Goldman [Marathon Man].” He also sent me a copy of Gold Coast, one of his earliest crime novels (after he’d made a modest reputation for himself by penning tales of the Old West), and apparently the
last of Leonard’s works to be published straight to paperback in the United
States. At the end of his letter, he wrote:

I’m enclosing my latest, which came out in December but was easily missed on the racks.

Hah! Looking back now, it’s hard to imagine that readers once passed over Leonard’s latest novels without so much as a howdy-do. But in 1980, they apparently did, and he seemed to take that fact in stride. Without any obvious resentment. Without giving up on his dream of being a writer. The New Orleans-born Leonard (or “Dutch,” as he preferred to be called, having gained the nickname from baseball pitcher Dutch Leonard) had spent many
years, after graduating from the University of Detroit, churning out copy for a Detroit advertising agency before his first novel, a Western titled The Bounty Hunters, was published in 1953. Thirteen more years would pass before the debut of his initial crime novel, The Big Bounce, and it wasn’t until the 1990s--when he was beginning his seventh decade--that Leonard’s name became widely recognized, thanks in large part to director Barry Sonnenfeld’s film
adaptation of his 1990 Hollywood satire, Get Shorty.

By the time he died this week, Leonard had come a hell of a long distance from the era when his books might be “easily missed on the racks.” Writing his novels first in longhand, and then reproducing them on an electric typewriter (he had “no
desire to learn how to use a computer,” according to Detroit’s Metro Times), Leonard had given his fans such best-selling yarns as Glitz (1985), Rum Punch (a 1992 novel adapted for the silver screen as Jackie Brown), Tishomingo
Blues (2002), and The Hot Kid (2005). Many followers of this octogenarian author, though, were equally if not more fond of other entries in his oeuvre, be they 52 Pick-Up (1974), Swag (1976), or my personal fave, LaBrava (1983), which won the 1984 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

More than 20 of his 46 novels were made into big-screen or TV movies (with both The Big Bounce and 52 Pick-Up being filmed twice), and three provided the inspirations for television series: Maximum Bob, a broadly comic, 1991 treat that became a short-lived show starring Beau Bridges and Liz Vassey; Out of Sight (1996), which, after serving as the basis for a 1998 film of the same name starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, became the jumping-off point for Karen Sisco, a Florida-set drama featuring Carla Gugino as a sexy young U.S. deputy marshal; and of course Pronto (1993) and its sequel, Riding the Rap
(1995), which developed the character of cowboy hat-wearing Deputy U.S. Marshal
Raylan Givens, played by Timothy Olyphant in the FX-TV series Justified.
Leonard’s action-oriented, dialogue-rich tales lent themselves to
Hollywood treatment.

However, it was his novels--sparely composed but richly evocative, casually humorous, and unaffected in their intent--that kept his name in the news and will be best remembered by future generations. “His flair is hard to borrow,” Janet Maslin observed this week in The New York Times, “because so much of it depends on what he did not write, not what he did. As with a Japanese line drawing, the bare space is as meaningful as the marks that have been made. There was great elegance to his elision.” New York magazine’s Matt Zoller Seitz adds:
“Anybody in the last four, maybe five decades who has tried to write colorful
but believable crime fiction with characters who behave realistically and don’t
sound phony has either studied Leonard, or failed because they should have studied
him more.” Leonard long ago committed his “10 Rules of Writing” (which include some
caveats) to print, but even memorizing those restrictions cannot make a
mediocre fictionist a champion, and slavish adherence to some of his personal rules (“Avoid detailed descriptions of characters”; “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip”) might stymie the development of authors with greater
ambitions or bore readers who want something beyond Leonard-lite.

It was good to see Elmore Leonard’s persistent efforts honored, even if such recognition didn’t come until late in his long life. In 1992 the Mystery Writers of America presented him with its Grand Master Award for “lifetime achievement and consistent quality.” He was given the Crime Writers’ Association’s Diamond Dagger award in 2006, the F. Scott Fitzgerald award in 2008, and the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009, and in 2012, the National Book Foundation presented him its prize for distinguished contribution to American letters.

Yet it’s readers who gave him his greatest rewards just by picking up his new books, quoting from them (his opening lines were often memorable) and passing them along to like-minded crime-fiction fans. I asked a few dozen of those readers--primarily crime novelists, but some critics/bloggers too--for their assessments of Leonard’s career and their selections of favorite books from his body of work. Half of their responses are posted below; the rest will appear on this page within the next couple of days. And everyone reading this tribute to Leonard should feel free to add their own thoughts on his
achievements in the Comments section at the end of this post.

I don’t think a day passes that I don’t go back to a passage
of Elmore’s work for inspiration. I am especially drawn to his Westerns and
other period pieces. I think 2005’s The Hot Kid
was his masterwork. It’s a novel about storytelling and myth-making in America.
The way he’d change viewpoints and voices and reference points to tell the same
story was incredible. It reminded me of Faulkner’s work. There has been a lot
written and said about his 10 Rules.
But I take the list as gospel and cringe at my early work that didn’t follow
his advice. His professional writing was devoid of all the pretentiousness and
tricks that often get rewarded in literature. Like Hemingway, he told it
straight and true, and in turn, his novels reflected real life.

Over the years, I got to spend some time with Elmore here in
Oxford, Mississippi, and also in France. He was a complete rock star in France.
When we pulled into the train station in Sete, he was greeted by reporters from
every major newspaper. Elmore Leonard had arrived.

Elmore Leonard was the worst interview of my seven-year journalistic
career. Don’t blame him, blame me. I was a feature writer at a daily newspaper,
nervous about meeting my literary hero, and wracked with self-doubt over my
first novel, which seemed to be stuck at page 50 for two years. The interview,
conducted at his suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Los Angeles, was marked by me
stumbling through questions, my tone alternating between sycophancy and
rudeness. A disaster. I have the tape to prove it. Throughout the whole ordeal,
Leonard was calm and unfazed, this skinny gent with the wispy goatee, smoking
one cigarette after the other while he did his best to answer. At the end, I apologized,
explained my circumstances, and handed him the best piece I ever wrote, an
interview with a former CIA agent. The clip was an attempt to show him that I
wasn’t always such an idiot and maybe could actually write. He looked in pain
as he shook my hand.

A day later I got a note from Leonard telling me he’d
really enjoyed the profile of the CIA agent and that I should keep working on
the novel. If it found a publisher he offered to read it in galleys, and if he
liked it, he would write me a blurb.

That was all the encouragement I needed. I
finished the book a year later. It found a publisher. Leonard liked the book
and did blurb it.

The thing that stuck with me was here was a guy
who had labored long and hard to find success at writing. He wrote for 10 years
before he could quit his day-job writing advertising copy at an agency in
Detroit. Ten years of getting up early, pounding away on a typewriter in his
unheated basement. Ten years of writing Westerns, because they could sell.
Paperback originals, no reviews, lousy pay, but they sold. The Westerns
are great, by the way, offering his familiar terse dialogue, the same
hyper-realistic characters and situations--no dusty-streets shootouts or
fanning a six-shooter. The real shit, from a guy who knew people and knew what mattered. Thirty years later he’s on top of the world. Big-shot reviewers are talking like he’s John Cheever or John Irving--as if that was a compliment. No
matter, the reviewers thought it was. On top of the world, and he sits in
his hotel room on book tour while a sweaty wannabe asks him rude questions.
Then he actually helps the kid.

We kept up an intermittent correspondence for the
last 25 years. He called to compliment me once on a series of good reviews of one of my books. I complained--once an asshole, always an asshole--that my hometown
paper, the L.A. Times had slammed it.
He laughed and told me to never take it personally. He recounted a scathing
review one of his books had gotten. He recited it from memory and it was ugly,
a personal attack on the man himself, the reviewer accusing Leonard of
believing his own press, putting on airs. Total bullshit, of course. Leonard
told me that a week after the review hit, the reviewer had requested an
interview when he came through town on tour. “What did you do?” I said. “I gave
him the interview,” said Leonard. “You gotta remember,” he said, “your first
job is to write the book. Then, your job is to promote the book. So you smile
and smoke a cigarette and you do the interview.”

I’ll miss the fact that there will be no new book
from him this year, but treasure the backlist and the fleeting contact with
a fine writer and an even better man.

Way
back in 1971, I was so impressed by the movie Valdez
Is Coming that I bought the paperback book by Elmore Leonard and read
it not long after seeing the film. I’ve been reading Leonard’s work ever since.
I first thought of him as a Western writer, because for the next few years I
picked up copies of things like Hombre and Forty Lashes Less One. Later I discovered 52 Pick-Up and Unknown Man #89. I haven’t read
all his crime novels since then, but I’ve read most of them. He’s been one of
my favorites for a long time and a big influence on my own writing in the
western genre.

About 10 years ago, the Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale,
Arizona, had an event on cross-genre writing.
I was one of the guests, along with Loren D. Estleman,
Joe R. Lansdale, and Leonard. He was a nice guy, and it was a real thrill for
me to meet him, be involved in panel discussions with him, and get him to sign
a few of my old paperbacks, including that Gold Medal paperback of Valdez Is
Coming that I’d held onto for so many years.

It’s hard to calculate Leonard’s influence on crime fiction
except to say that it’s been wide and deep. Just about everyone knows his
“rules” for writing and keeping the author “invisible” in the work. His
approaches to dialogue and criminal characters are widely admired. Will people
still be reading his work in 70 or 80 years as they’re still reading fiction by
Raymond Chandler and Dashiell
Hammett? I think they will.

It was 1982 and my first Miles Jacoby book, Eye in the Ring, was scheduled to be
published by Avon Books. The Avon folks asked me for some names of authors to
send the galleys to for blurbs. The first one I thought of was Elmore Leonard. Dutch
read it, and sent this back to the editor: “If Bob Randisi’s Eye in the Ring moved any faster, you’d
have to nail it down to read it.” In the end, the publisher forgot to put that blurb on the book. Some
years afterward it was used on another edition, though.

A few years later I was doing an anthology and decided to
invite Dutch Leonard. I don’t remember how, but I had his phone number. I
called him. When he answered I wasn’t sure he’d remember me. I said, “Dutch,
this is Bob Randisi. I’m not sure you remember me, but--“

He cut me off and said, “Of course I remember you. You’re
the guy who writes a book in a weekend.”

Still more years later, I was at a party at the Michigan
home of another author and Dutch walked in. I think we had seen each other once
or twice during the intervening time--at the Edgar Awards, or something like
that. I went over to say hello. He was talking with several people, but looked
at me and asked, “Did you ever use that quote I gave you? “ This had to be six
or seven years after the fact!

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Thank you,” I said.

He looked at the other people and said, “I sent him a quote
that said if his book moved ay faster you’d have to nail it down to read it.” I
was shocked that he remembered it, word for word.

I’ve received blurbs from many authors over the years--Harlan
Ellison, Sue Grafton, Michael Connolly, James W. Hall, others--but my Dutch
Leonard quote is still one of my favorites. And it always leads to these
stories.

Elmore Leonard was a gentleman, and an innovator in the
crime-writing business. I don’t know if he dug the grave of, or simply dumped
the last shovel of dirt onto the omniscient third-person narrator in books, but
his narration--whether first-person or -third--was immediate, and vital, and
opened up a whole new world for me. I first encountered him with 52 Pick-Up, quickly moved on to Unkown Man #89, Swag, and City Primeval: High
Noon in Detroit. He became one of my favorite authors. I also believe he
became a friend.

As you may know, we recently did
an Elmore
Leonard Day as part of the Friday Forgotten Books series. It was terribly
difficult, for most of us, to choose which book to read. I chose some of his
short stories, which were first-rate lessons in how to write a short story that
grabbed the reader immediately and kept him in a headlock. But all of his
novels were like that, too. People don't speak enough about his graceful
writing. Read a short story and see what I mean.

I saw Leonard twice in the last
few years. Once at a Borders store, where the event was hardly advertised, so
[my husband and I] had Elmore and his son, Peter, practically to ourselves. I
have never seen a writer--and I have been to many of these talks--so happy to
discuss every facet of his career. Peter was a marvelous straight man for the
vivacious 80-year-old. The talk went on for well over an hour. And this was to
a group of perhaps 12.

We saw him more recently at a huge
gathering in a large facility. This time he was interviewed by his assistant.
Although more fragile (the event didn’t begin until 9 p.m.), he still charmed
everyone with his enthusiasm and his stories about Justified. (I
am so glad he was able to go out with Justified
the roaring success it is.) In both cases, he gave so much more of himself than
most people would. And he did it naturally without prompting, answering the
most inane questions from the audience with patience and charm.

There are a rare few artists who contribute more than a
simple re-imagining of their art, but rather invent a new form within the form.
You think of Beethoven, James Joyce, Picasso, Jimi Hendrix, and Dashiell
Hammett. Elmore Leonard was one of these. Where Hammett rescued crime fiction
from the formalism and cozy (pun intended) world of gentleman sleuths and
stately homes, Leonard took readers directly into the dirtiest of the dark
streets, not just of place, but of the heart and mind. While Hammett freely
tapped into the literary revolution of his time (Ernest Hemmingway comes to
mind), Leonard brought the rhythms of postwar jazz, the cynicism of urban
intellectuals and traumatized veterans, and a vein of black humor entirely of
his own invention, to the world of crime fiction.

He blurred the lines between the forces of good and evil
more thoroughly than any prior writer by rendering all of his characters as more
real than real, almost entirely through dialogue. His influence on me is
manifold, though I’m most grateful for this remarkable dialogue, which gave
writers like me the license to be brutal, funny, and intelligent all in the
same line.

When I last saw the doyen of American crime writers in a
Seven Dials hotel (filming an interview with him for his UK publisher), I was
struck--as I always was when meeting the great Elmore Leonard--by the youthful
demeanor that animated his weathered frame. Although the years were beginning
to take their toll, he was still--mentally--as sharp as a pin, if occasionally
turning to his son, fellow novelist Peter,
for the odd prompt. But there was always about “Dutch” (that famous sobriquet I
never felt I knew him quite well enough to use) a subtle timelessness--and not
just in his attitudes. He was even able to wear a pair of jeans without making
one think how loosely they hung on his aging body. And, boy, was talking to him
stimulating!

As on earlier meetings, I remembered that he really enjoyed
a range of conversational topics, not just talking about his crime novels, the
most influential of the modern era (although he was happy enough to answer
questions about them, and took an infectious pleasure in the cult success of
his TV series Justified). But he
relished discussing his early life as one of the most successful writers of
Westerns, and I knew I could always get a smile from him by answering one of
the many questions he’d fire at me, mischievously testing my credentials as
someone who was supposed to know the minutiae of films and books: “Who played
the villain in that Paul Newman film of my book Hombre?” When I answered “Richard
Boone,” he grinned broadly. “Boone, yes! Terrific character actor--best
heavy in films. And, wow, could that son of a bitch drink!” But Leonard also
liked to discuss the arts in general: films, music ... and books. He remembered
fondly the lost generation of professional writers like himself in the 1950s, 10-cents-a-liners
who turned their hands to whatever paid the rent, be it Westerns or crime
fiction. Basically, however, any subject was grist to the mill for Leonard’s
still-keen mind, and there was never enough time to listen to all the stories
he’d regale me with. Stories which (unlike many men of his age) one had not
heard before on previous meetings.

One of these meetings (in 2006) was a proud one for the
writer, when Leonard received one of the top honors for practitioners of his
craft. Leonard was clearly pleased by the gathering of the Great and the Good
in the British crime-fiction world who had assembled in a plush room at the
Savoy Hotel overlooking the Thames. They were there to both applaud his
achievement and watch him being presented with the
prestigious Diamond Dagger award. But while Leonard was fêted, the
conversation of the cream of BritCrime specialists was heading off at various
tangents. Ian Rankin mused on the fact that crime fiction has now seen off
romance as the most popular of popular genres; Peter Lovesey tried
(unsuccessfully) to remember the circumstances of a famous murder at the Savoy
in the distant past (he is a specialist in historical crime, after all), while
Colin Dexter, the most amiable of éminences grises, was having thoughts
of mortality--specifically the prolonging of his own by eschewing drink and
cigarettes. Leonard listened to all of this with a wry smile.

In a typically sardonic acceptance speech, “Dutch” noted
that his Western story 3:10 to Yuma (previously filmed with Glenn Ford) had
been optioned for a re-make--tying in with a new collection of his Western
stories from UK publisher Orion. “Tom Cruise wanted to do it,” he said, “but I
think there may be a re-write ... a bigger part for a short bank robber,
perhaps? Just so long as they don’t wear those dinky Dale Evans cowboy hats
...” (In the event, the film was made with Russell Crowe and
Christian Bale.) As the evening wound down and the last wine glasses were
drained, I asked Leonard if he’d enjoyed all the worshipful attention. “Actually,”
he said with a smile, “I still don’t believe it--the fact that I have this ... well,
reputation. Oh, I know I can do the job. I'm good at dialogue. But when people
call me ‘the King of American crime writers,’ and talk about the literary
qualities of my books, I find myself thinking, ‘Hell, I’m just like Chandler,
Hammett, and those guys knocking it out for the pulp magazines were--writing
whatever the market wants to put food on the table.’ On the other hand ...”--he
looked around the room at his fellow writers, still casting admiring glances
his way--“I can’t argue it isn’t damned nice to be so well thought of ...”

Elmore Leonard’s Glitz was the first crime fiction I ever read. It not
only changed my life, but is indirectly responsible for changing the lives for
a dozen more. It may even have some credit for creating one.

Glitz blew me away with it’s raw dialogue and characters etched in a gritty realism that I’d never seen before. It made me want to do the same thing ... or at least it made me want to try.

In 2004, I got to meet the man at Coliseum Books in New York. I handed him a copy of my first published story and just said, “This doesn’t exist without what you do.”

ThugLit wouldn't exist if Elmore Leonard hadn’t done what he did, written what he wrote.

Subsequently, my novel would never have existed without Elmore Leonard having done what he did, written what he wrote.

It was just having finished my novel that gave me the conversational “in” with the pretty girl who worked at a local bookstore. The pretty girl who would become my wife--who would then give me my son, Sam.

So, yes ... Sam Drake Robinson might not be here if Elmore Leonard had never written a word.

Last year, a fellow bartender came in, toting a few copies of Mr. Leonard’s books. He looked at me and said; “Hey, you know this guy?”

I thought about my answer for a moment while I considered simply head-butting him in the face for even asking me that. After I decided to allow him to keep all of his blood on the inside, I said, “I don’t want to overstate or exaggerate who Elmore Leonard is, so I’ll just say that he’s THE FUCKING GOD of what I do.”

A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Leonard’s granddaughter, who kinda laughed at me, and whom I think I slightly creeped out with my knowledge of her grandfather. My heart goes out to her and her family this week.

So here I am, a 41-year-old man with a lump in his throat, writing a eulogy for a man that I met for about 22 seconds almost a decade ago. Mr. Leonard was 87 years old, and by all accounts lived a full, long, successful life. But goddamn if I’m not mourning the loss of the man deeply right now.

“He didn’t have to stay here. He didn’t have to be a town constable. He didn’t have to work for the stage company. He didn’t have to listen to Mr. Beaudry and Mr. Malson and smile when they said those things. He didn’t have a wife or any
kids. He didn’t have land that he owned. He could be anywhere he wanted.” -- From
Valdez Is Coming

This passage to me is
quintessential Leonard, describing the essence of his character. Depending on
which of his books you pick up, that character could be cresting a hill on a paint
horse or tooling through the wintry streets of Detroit in a maroon-and-white
Cougar bought at police auction with four bullet holes in the driver’s door, as
in Unknown Man #89.

I only met him once, briefly, but
his writing still teaches me a lot. Elmore Leonard is an example of why
crime fiction, Western writing, genre writing in general, has always enthralled
readers. It’s not about rising above the genre label and being accepted in the
so-called mainstream, but about why he and others, like Donald E. Westlake and
Ross Macdonald, set the bar high for other genre writers to reach in their work
in their own way.

Elmore Leonard’s sad passing at age 87 marks another literary
icon gone. It reminds me of the deaths of such fiction giants as James
Crumley and Robert
B. Parker. I enjoyed reading Mr. Leonard’s Westerns, which he wrote earlier
in his long, distinguished career. The Western title that stands out for me is Hombre,
published in 1961. I liked the narrator’s voice (it’s written in first-person
point of view), as well as the story’s brisk pace, steady buildup, and gut-felt
climax. Paul Newman
played the Apache-raised white protagonist, John Russell, in the movie
based on that book. I’ve always seen Paul Newman and Elmore Leonard as
being the tops in their respective artistic fields. I’ll make it a point to
soon revisit both the novel and film Hombre, just for the sheer pleasure of doing it.

Elmore Leonard will be greatly missed for so very many
reasons. Perhaps, sadly, those who were familiar with Leonard’s work were
familiar with his genius as a result of some superb film adaptations and
television productions--Hombre, Mr. Majestyk, Get Shorty, Jackie Brown,
Out of Sight, and most recently the
Sony/FX adaptation Justified--more
than they were with his novels. From his early 1950s Westerns to the
unforgettable Chili Palmer, Leonard infused every page he penned with a hard
realism, the plot carried forward by a striking ear for dialogue, pitch-black
humor, and razor-sharp irony. Leonard was a consummate expert in so many
aspects of novel-writing, so much so that his Try to leave out the part
that readers tend to skip ethos, quipped in jest perhaps, belied a
stunning sense of plotting and narrative skill. There was no one like Leonard.
There will never be another like Leonard. I can only hope that his tragic
passing brings him closer to the forefront of the genre, giving ever greater
numbers of people the chance to enjoy the unique talent that was exemplified in
each and every one of his published works. R.I.P., Elmore. We celebrate a long
and wonderful life, and a magnificent canon of work.

It’s impossible to overstate the influence of Elmore Leonard
on several generations of writers and also filmmakers. I suppose I myself came
to his work relatively late and somewhat in awe of the mighty reputation. I
remember thinking that no one could live up to such plaudits, and being very
quickly put straight by the freshness of Leonard’s writing. Crisp, lean prose
and the much-lauded snappy dialogue were there in abundance, but it was the way
he disguised plot, made you forget this was a story, and at once dragged you
into this very real, and yet unreal, world that really impressed. As a writer
you always read with one eye on figuring out the author’s technique--I never
did that with Leonard, because I was always too engrossed in the storytelling,
which was always among the finest of the modern greats.

The literary world (and I say “literary” rather than crime
fiction, deliberately) has lost a powerful voice. Elmore Leonard was one of the
most prolific, diverse, and humorous authors I’ve ever read. Between his crime
fiction, Westerns, and other novels, it’s impossible to choose a favorite, but Get Shorty and Djibouti come pretty close for me. In fact, his craft was at such
an extraordinary level that I use the first eight pages of Be Cool when I teach dialogue to writers. And who among us doesn’t
refer (often) to his 10 Rules of Writing?
I did not know him personally, but it’s heartbreaking to think there will never
be a “new” Elmore Leonard novel to look forward to.

After I posted the sad news of Elmore Leonard’s passing on
my Facebook page earlier this week, Jack O’Connell--both a wonderful and so
underrated writer himself and a lifelong fan of Leonard’s--enquired what were
my favorite novels of his. I came up with Glitz
and Stick, although to be honest once
I wracked my memories and shelves, I could have mentioned almost any of his
books, including the Westerns. He never disappointed. A laconic master of fluid
prose, action, and wry, memorable characters, he made writing look so easy,
although even with the support of his famous “10 Rules for Writing,” none of us
could even approach his level of simple artistry. Better literary critics than
me will now praise him and beyond, but I’d rather remember the man. A unique
writer and a gentleman.

I was lucky enough to spend time with Dutch on four
occasions. He enjoyed his first-ever, highly successful UK signing at my Murder
One bookstore, and we were later generously invited to dinner along with
his wife, Joan, and my wife by a common friend, scriptwriter Neville Smith
(author of the screenplay for Stephen Frears’ marvelous 1971 Albert Finney
film, Gumshoe), and
had a memorable evening full of Hollywood gossip in Soho. He subsequently
returned to London, a trip that included an onstage appearance at the National
Film Theatre, where I was also to interview the also much-missed Don Westlake just a few weeks later. The following year, he agreed to attend the Frontignan Noir
festival in the south of France, and we spent four wonderful days together in
the Mediterranean sun, sharing chat, jokes (and how dry his piercing wit was),
and lengthy French meals. Dutch enjoyed the trip so much, he agreed to visit
Italy and Courmayeur’s Noir in Festival (a film and literature event) six
months later at my request, where we gave him the Raymond Chandler Award and
celebrated his career. Again a glorious week, this time in the picturesque snow
in the shadow of Mont Blanc, with Italian cuisine at its best, which he thoroughly
enjoyed alongside his son, Peter, and his sidekick/researcher, Greg Sutter,
who'd traveled with him.

I will treasure the memories of our brief time together. He
was a most unpretentious, modest man, a lovely guy with that great mischievous
glint in his eyes, and so much more than just a crime writer, as literary
history will confirm. He will be missed in our hearts and on our bookshelves

No other crime writer--living or
dead--taught me as much, simply by reading him. The key was dialogue. In his
hands, dialogue comes alive and reveals both plot and character masterfully. I
spent much of the late ’70s and early ’80s engrossed in his novels. Marathon reads,
one after another. I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing him. What is most
difficult about singling out just one or a few of his works as the best or most
important, is that they are all distinctively Elmore Leonard books. They bear
an indelible stamp. No one else could have written them.

As a writer, Elmore Leonard was
tremendously influential; I would say the most important stylist in crime
fiction since Chandler. He brought the pace (and morality) of the classic
Western story to contemporary urban crime, and did it with intelligence and
humor. He showed lesser writers like myself how to let characters describe
themselves, their motivation and even their surroundings simply by the dialogue
they spoke.

As a fledgling mystery writer, I
met him in London in 1988 and was bowled over by his charm and patience dealing
with a long, long line of fans buying his new novel, Freaky Deaky. He was more than
happy to write anything his readers wanted when doing a signing session and in
1991, when some friends in Los Angeles bought me Maximum Bob as a present, they persuaded him to dedicate it
as follows: “To Mike Ripley, a.k.a. Fitzroy Maclean Angel, from your fan this
side of the pond, Elmore Leonard.”

That book still takes pride of
place on my bookshelves, though I’m sure Elmore had no idea who I (or Fitzroy
Maclean Angel, my series hero) was. A few years later I was equally proud to
see one of my reviews of his latest book being quoted on his official Web site.

He showed his self-effacing
modesty, and wit, the last time I saw him, a couple of years ago at the British
Film Institute in London where he introduced a showing of the original 3:10 to Yuma.
He told the story of how, finding one of his novels was No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, he
thought: “I had no idea I could write well enough--or so badly--to
make it to No. 1 on the New York Times
list ...”

He was the last of the great pulp
writers: a man who learned his trade in the spare, lean prose of cheap paper
and illustrated covers, a “genre” writer who disdained the unnecessary and
merely ornamental. He practiced an economy of words few authors could match,
but oh, what words--what voices--and what an ear.

I never had a chance to meet him in person, but I followed him online, grateful
for his Facebook friendship. His Westerns, particularly Hombre and 3:10 to Yuma,
impacted me as a reader and a writer, as did City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, Swag, and many more.

From noirish haikus to the clip-clopping threat of hooves on a lonesome, dusty
road, his prose sang with tension and character, elegantly built. He created
dialogue with the understanding of an actor and the ear of a music tuner, and
as long as there are words and stories and people to read them, Elmore Leonard’s
work will live on.

A long time ago, trying to figure out what it was about Elmore
Leonard’s work that captured me so completely, the answer came in a phrase that
I think I made up. Leonard’s writing takes place where the match meets the
scratch. In book after book, he puts his characters and his readers at the
friction point and then keeps them there, longer and better than anyone
I know. His famous guideline, “leave out the things readers skip,” was part of
the secret, but the real power of his writing, for me, was that it threw off
sparks all the way. Even the so-called lulls are just pauses in the alternating
current. How he did it--how he kept those people there, kept them real, and
took us inside their hearts and minds at the same time--I have no idea, but I
know that when I read Leonard I hear the sound of that long, long scratch of
ignition. There will never be anyone like him.

Jim Napier, a
Quebec-based crime-fiction reviewer, a regular contributor to January Magazine
and The Rap Sheet, and author of the award-winning crime-fiction site, Deadly Diversions:

Elmore Leonard was a wonderfully complex man and a quintessentially
American writer, both in subject and style. His famous “10 Rules of Writing”
cut right to the bone in Leonard’s characteristic no-nonsense way. They include
“Never open a book with the weather, “Use regional dialect sparingly,” and
“Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.” The list of
first-rate authors who have violated these rules--which includes Tony Hillerman
and James Lee Burke, among others--would cause a more tractable man to blush.
But not Leonard. His rules worked for him: he managed to combine suspense, dark
humor, and hard-hitting dialogue in a spare, gritty prose that perfectly fit
the twisted world he was trying to describe. Not everyone’s cuppa, of course,
but his influence can be found in some of America’s most original writers,
including Joe R. Lansdale and James Sallis. My favorites among his novels include
the standalone Maximum Bob, the Chili Palmer classic, Get Shorty,
and its sequel, Be Cool.

Elmore Leonard was one of the first crime writers I ever
read. Along with Chandler and Lawrence Block, his novels got me hooked on the
genre. Nowadays, whenever I’m invited to speak with aspiring writers, I hand
out copies of his legendary “10 Rules of Writing.” When I talk about beginning
a book with a bang, I read them the opening of Freaky Deaky. And when I get to discussing great dialogue, I read
them anything he ever wrote. Leonard was a fiction master--one of the true
greats.

Not only was Elmore Leonard the most popular crime writer of
his time, but he was the most influential. It’s difficult to find a writer of
dark intent whose work doesn’t show Leonard’s influence. His cast of characters
gives us a look at some of the most frightening but also comically deranged
people in American literature. My favorite Leonard novel is Valdez Is Coming. If I had a chance to
teach only two novels, one would be Valdez
and the other Gatsby. Leonard was a
master of craft.I’d teach Valdez to show how to tell a perfect story.

Ali Karim, a
contributing editor of January Magazine
and The Rap Sheet’s always-too-busy British correspondent:

As has been the case for so many others, I was devastated by
the news of Elmore Leonard’s passing. Having followed his work for many years,
I can say that it was his sharply edited writing style that made it stand out.
It was hardly surprising to see his stories adapted for the big and small
screens. The terse nature of his narrative style suited the camera, but it will
be his novels that I’ll most fondly recall. Novels such as 52 Pick-Up (which was adapted twice). His influence on the Western-
and crime-fiction genres cast long shadows which included Quentin Tarantino’s
adaptation of Rum Punch as Jackie Brown and Steven Soderbergh’s Out of
Sight, amongst many others. His ability to carve distinctive characters
such as Chilli Palmer from Get Shorty
or Maximum Bob (Gibbs) made him a writers’ writer.

I was fortunate to have met Elmore Leonard a few years ago
in London, when the British Crime Writers’ Association presented him with its Diamond
Dagger award for lifetime achievement. My friend and Shots
editor Mike Stotter was excited that day. He had been heavily influenced by
Leonard’s work, and it had even given him the confidence to pen his
own Westerns, all the way from London.

I managed to grab five minutes with Dutch and I told him that he was my inspiration in writing Westerns, and he was genuinely pleased. I also had with me a hardback copy of The Fatal Frontier, which contained my very first short
story (actually an extract from McKinney’s Revenge, my first full-length
Western). I asked Dutch to sign it for me. He took a look at the cover, and
said, “This is an odd one.” To which I replied, “It’s the first anthology in
which I have a story published alongside you.” He laughed and said, “Well, a
Brit Western writer. Well done.”

So let us celebrate the legacy Elmore Leonard left us, and
as we imagine him riding into the sunset, remember he is leaving behind some
wonderful writing and cinematic works for future generations to discover.

In the early 1970s, I “discovered” Elmore Leonard (Stick, I believe, was the first of his
books I read). Thereafter, I went through all of his street thrillers, and then
back further to his Western novels/novellas/short stories that had been adapted
by Hollywood.

While I met Dutch (the childhood nickname he preferred)
a number of times, we actually talked at any length only once, but it was kind
of a “literary salon” over dinner after a (S.R.O.) reading and signing he did in
1991 at Kate’s
Mystery Bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I remember the year because
my John Cuddy private-eye novel Right to
Die had just been published, and Dr. Jack Kevorkian (like
Dutch, a Michigander) had been indicted only a month or two earlier. Dutch,
Kate (and even Dutch’s media escort), and I talked about assisted suicide and
its many facets: the fears of doctors (losing their licenses, facing criminal
prosecution); the qualms of clergy (World War II death camps, slippery slopes
regarding “society would be better off without ...”); the squabbling family
survivors (grinding frustration versus flip-side anguish); the efficacy and
advisability of a judicially supervised “death panel,” etc.

After a while, I noticed I was doing most of the talking
(where can those who know me register their surprise?), which at the time didn’t
seem all that odd: Thanks to my research on the subject and the buzz about my
coincidental novel back then, I'd become a “utility infielder” for TV and radio
shows addressing the issue of assisted suicide. And Dutch never seemed bored.
He watched me carefully and listened intently, obviously involved in the topic.
“Involved,"” that is, until I realized that what he was really doing was something that I as a
crime-novelist do, too: This quiet, thoughtful Detroit resident/Florida
snowbird was “getting” me (an arrogant, aggressive, articulate Boston trial
attorney-cum-law professor) as a character for him to use in a future book.

I don’t know if Dutch ever did “Tuckerize” me, but I’ll
never forget how much I enjoyed his company that evening and his books for many
years to come.

Elmore Leonard was the modern
writer who inspired me to write crime fiction. Get Shorty was the first of his books I read in the early ’90s,
then I read all the other crime fiction he’d written to that point. His books
are more valuable than any writing program for an aspiring writer. If you want
to learn about character, voice, plotting, and suspense, just pick up a Leonard
novel.

After I had published several
books on my own, I had the pleasure of introducing Leonard at a talk/reading at
the Housing Works bookshop in Manhattan. We spoke there for a while and then
had a correspondence by snail-mail (his typewritten letters to me on official Elmore
Leonard stationary are prized possessions). His anecdotes about writing and
working in Hollywood are unforgettable. Even though he was busy on a book in
2006, he was kind enough to give me a blurb for my book Lights Out, which I’ve recycled many times since.

In my opinion, Leonard is up there
with James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Charles Willeford, and Patricia Highsmith
as one of the best crime writers of the past 100 years. And I think he’ll still
be part of the conversation 100 years from now.

7 comments:

Back in the mid-90s, I published a serial novel called NAKED CAME THE MANATEE, which featured 13 Florida-based writers. Dave Barry wrote the first chapter, and Dutch Leonard and Carl Hiaasen batted cleanup.

I was lucky enough to get the three of them to agree to a short publicity tour, as long as they could do it together and generally have a good time. We had an excellent dinner here in New York, and then the next day they were scheduled for a People magazine photo shoot.

When they got to the studio, though, they were greeted with a variety of odd props, including a child's wading pool (unfilled) and some beachballs. Carl drew Dave aside and said, "Look, we can do this, because...we have no pride. But we can't ask Dutch to -- " and they turned around, and there was Dutch, already happily ensconced in the wading pool and playing with a beachball.

Nice tribute. I've been reading Elmore Leonard since the early 70s, mostly the crime novels. My favorite remains Unknown Man No. 89, which I reread from time to time. Great writer, right up there with the MacDonalds, Chandler, Hammett.

As a Brit, it was hard to get hold of some of his earlier books in the late 70s when I first learned of Elmore Leonard. A friend used to bring them back from his visits to the States. Later, I'd trawl second-hand bookstores looking for others I'd missed, and then, when he was being published regularly here, I'd hang around in bookstores every day on my way home from work, waiting for the next 'Leonard' to arrive. I would then read the new purchase on the bus home with a huge grin on my face because it was like mainlining pleasure. I've read everything he's written (I think) and he's peerless in using interaction and dialogue to help you, the reader, understand his characters' motivations, thoughts and feelings. I will miss him sorely.

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